the wicked king part of it
by mich-2703-avrutski
Summary: it's just part of an actual book so ik where it is. ignore this book


For a moment, I don't speak. "You're poisoned," I say finally. "You know that, right?"

He doesn't startle. "Ah," he says. "Balekin."

I say nothing, just set him down before the fire in my rooms, his back against my couch. He looks odd there, his beautiful clothes a contrast to the plain rug, his face pale with a hectic flush in his cheeks.

He reaches up and presses my hand to his face. "It's funny, isn't it, how I mocked you for your mortality when you're certain to outlive me."

"You're not going to die," I insist.

"Oh, how many times have I wished that you couldn't lie? Never more than now."

He lolls to one side, and I grab one of the pitchers of water and pour a glass full. I bring it to his lips. "Cardan? Get down as much as you can."

He doesn't reply and seems about to fall asleep. "No." I pat his cheek with increasing force until it's more of a smack. "You've got to stay awake."

His eyes open. His voice is muzzy. "I'll just sleep for a little while."

"Unless you want to wind up like Severin of Fairfold, encased in glass for centuries while mortals line up to take pictures with his body, you're going to stay awake."

He shifts into a more upright sitting position. "Fine," he says. "Talk to me."

"I saw your mother tonight," I say. "All dressed up. The time I saw her before that was in the Tower of Forgetting."

"And you're wondering if I forgot her?" he says airily, and I am pleased that he's paying enough attention to deliver one of his typical quips.

"Glad you're up to mocking."

"I hope it's the last thing about me to go. So tell me about my mother."

I try to think of something to say that isn't entirely negative. I go for carefully neutral. "The first time I met her, I didn't know who she was. She wanted to trade me some information for getting her out of the Tower. And she was afraid of you."

"Good," he says.

My eyebrows go up. "So how did she wind up a part of your Court?"

"I suppose I have some fondness for her yet," he admits. I pour him some more water, and he drinks it more slowly than I'd like. I refill the glass as soon as I can.

"There are so many questions I wish I could ask my mom," I admit.

"What would you ask?" The words slur together, but he gets them out.

"Why she married Madoc," I say, pointing to the glass, which he obediently brings to his mouth. "Whether she loved him and why she left him and whether she was happy in the human world. Whether she actually murdered someone and hid her body in the burnt remains of Madoc's original stronghold."

He looks surprised. "I always forget that part of the story."

I decide a subject change is in order. "Do you have questions like that for your father?"

"Why am I the way I am?" His tone makes it clear he's proposing something I might suggest he ask, not really wondering about it. "There are no real answers, Jude. Why was I cruel to Folk? Why was I awful to you? Because I could be. Because I liked it. Because, for a moment, when I was at my worst, I felt powerful, and most of the time, I felt powerless, despite being a prince and the son of the High King of Faerie."

"That's an answer," I say.

"Is it?" And then, after a moment. "You should go."

"Why?" I ask, annoyed. For one, this is my room. For another, I am trying to keep him alive.

He looks at me solemnly. "Because I am going to retch."

I grab for the bucket, and he takes it from me, his whole body convulsing with the force of vomiting. The contents of his stomach appear like matted leaves, and I shudder. I didn't know wraithberry did that.

There's a knock on the door, and I go to it. The Bomb is there, out of breath. I let her in, and she moves past me, straight to Cardan.

"Here," she says, pulling out a little vial. "It's clay. It may help draw out and contain the toxins."

Cardan nods and takes it from her, swallowing the contents with a grimace. "It tastes like dirt."

"It is dirt," she informs him. "And there's something else. Two things, really. Grimsen was already gone from his forge when we tried to capture him. We have to assume the worst—that he's with Orlagh.

"Also, I was given this." She takes a note from her pocket. "It's from Balekin. Cannily phrased, but breaks down to this—he's offering the antidote to you, Jude, if you will bring him the crown."

"The crown?" Cardan opens his eyes, and I realize he must have closed them without my noticing.

"He wants you to take it to the gardens, near the roses," the Bomb says.

"What happens if he doesn't get the antidote?" I ask.

The Bomb puts the back of her hand against Cardan's cheek. "He's the High King of Elfhame—he has the strength of the land to draw on. But he's very weak already. And I don't think he knows how to do it. Your Majesty?"

He looks at her with benevolent incomprehension. "Whatever do you mean? I just took a mouthful of the land at your behest."

I think about what she's saying, about what I know of the High King's powers.

Surely you have noticed that since his reign began, the isles are different. Storms come in faster. Colors are a bit more vivid, smells are sharper.

But all of that was done without trying. I am certain he didn't notice the land altering itself to better suit him.

Look at them all, your subjects, he'd said to me at a revel months ago. A shame not a one knows who their true ruler is.

If Cardan doesn't believe himself to be the true High King of Elfhame, if he doesn't allow himself to access his own power, it will be my fault. If wraithberry kills him, it will be because of me.

"I'll get that antidote," I say.

Cardan lifts the crown from his head and looks at it for a moment, as though somehow he cannot fathom how it came into his hand. "This can't pass to Oak if you lose it. Although I admit the succession gets tricky if I die."

"I already told you," I say. "You're not going to die. And I am not going to take that crown." I go in the back and change around the contents of my pockets. I tie on a cloak with a deep hood and a new mask. I am so furious that my hands shake. Wraithberry, which I was once invulnerable to, thanks to careful mithridatism. If I had been able to keep up the doses, I could have perhaps tricked Balekin as I once tricked Madoc. But after my imprisonment in the Undersea, I have one less advantage and far higher stakes. I have lost my immunity. I am as vulnerable to poison as Cardan.

"You'll stay with him?" I ask the Bomb, and she nods.

"No," says Cardan. "She goes with you."

I shake my head. "The Bomb knows about potions. She knows about magic. She can make sure you don't get worse."

He ignores me and takes her hand. "Liliver, as your king, I command you," he says with great dignity for someone sitting on the floor beside the bucket he's retched in. "Go with Jude."

I turn to the Bomb, but I see in her face that she won't disobey him—she's made her oath and even given him her name. He's her king.

"Damn you," I whisper to one or maybe both of them.

I vow that I will get the antidote swiftly, but that doesn't make it any easier for me to leave when I know the wraithberry could yet stop his heart. His searing gaze follows us out the door, blown pupils and crown still in his hand.

Balekin is in the garden as he promised, near a blooming tree of silver-blue roses. When I get there, I note figures not too distant from where we stand, other courtiers going for midnight strolls. It means he cannot attack me, but neither can I attack him.

At least not without others knowing about it.

"You are a great disappointment," he says.

It's such a shock that I actually laugh. "You mean because I wasn't glamoured. Yes, I can see how that would be very sad for you."

He glowers, but he doesn't even have Vulciber beside him now to threaten me with. Perhaps being an Ambassador to the Undersea makes him believe he's untouchable.

All I can think about is that he poisoned Cardan, he tormented me, he pushed Orlagh to raid the land. I am shaking with anger, but trying to bite back that fury so I can get through what must be done.

"Did you bring me the crown?" he asks.

"I've got it nearby," I lie. "But before I hand it over, I want to see the antidote."

He pulls a vial from his coat, nearly the twin of the one he gave me, which I take out of my pocket. "They would have executed me if they'd found me with this poison," I say, shaking it. "That's what you intended, wasn't it?"

"Someone may execute you yet," he says.

"Here's what we're going to do," I say, taking the stopper out of the bottle. "I am going to take the poison, and then you're going to give me the antidote. If it works on me, then I'll bring out the crown and trade it to you for the bottle. If not, then I guess I'll die, but the crown will be lost forever. Whether Cardan lives or dies, that crown is hidden well enough to be lost for decades."

"Grimsen can forge me another," Balekin says.

"If that's true, then what are we here for?"

Balekin grimaces, and I consider the possibility that the little smith isn't with Orlagh after all. Maybe he's disappeared after doing his best to set us at one another's throats. Maybe there's no crown but this one.

"You stole that crown from me," he says.

"True enough," I admit. "And I'll hand it over to you, but not for nothing."

"I can't lie, mortal. If I say I will give you the antidote, I will do it. My word is enough."

I give him my best scowl. "Everyone knows to beware when bargaining with the Folk. You deceive with your every breath. If you truly have the antidote, what does it harm you to let me poison myself? I would think it would be a pleasure."

He gives me a searching look. I imagine he's angry that I am not glamoured. He must have had to scramble when I hustled Cardan out of the throne room. Was he always ready with the antidote? Did he think he could persuade Cardan to crown him that way? Was he arrogant enough to believe that the Council wouldn't have stood in his way?

"Very well," he says. "One dose for you, and the rest for Cardan."

I unstopper the bottle he gave me and toss it back, drinking all the contents with a pronounced wince. I am angry all over again, thinking of how sick I made myself taking tiny doses of poison. All for nothing.

"Do you feel the wraithberry working on your blood? It will work far faster on you than on one of us. And you took such a large dose." He watches me with such a fierce expression that I can tell he wishes he could leave me to die. If he could justify walking away right now, he would. For a moment, I think he might.

Then he crosses toward me and unstoppers the bottle in his own hand. "Please do not believe that I will put it into your hand," he says. "Open your mouth like a little bird, and I will drop in your dose. Then you will give me the crown."

I open my mouth obediently and let him pour the thick, bitter, honey-like stuff onto my tongue. I duck away from him, returning the distance between us, making sure I am closer to the entrance of the palace.

"Satisfied?" he asks.

I spit the antidote into the glass bottle, the one he gave me, the one that once contained wraithberry, but until a few moments before, was filled only with water.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

I stopper it again and toss it through the air to the Bomb, who catches it handily. Then she is gone, leaving him to gape at me.

"What have you done?" he demands.

"I tricked you," I tell him. "A bit of misdirection. I dumped out your poison and washed out the vial. As you keep forgetting, I grew up here and so am also dangerous to bargain with—and, as you see, I can lie. And, like you reminded me so long ago, I am short on time."

He draws the sword at his side. It's a thin, long blade. I don't think it's the one he used to fight Cardan in his tower room, but it might be.

"We're in public," I remind him. "And I am still the High King's senseschal."

He looks around, taking in the sight of the other courtiers nearby. "Leave us," he shouts at them. A thing it did not occur to me that anyone could do, but he is used to being a prince. He is used to being obeyed.

And indeed, the courtiers seem to melt into the shadows, clearing the room for the sort of duel we definitely ought not to have. I slip my hand into my pocket, touching the hilt of a knife. The range on it is nothing like a sword. As Madoc explained more than once: A sword is a weapon of war, a dagger is a weapon of murder. I'd rather have the knife than be unarmed, but more than anything, I wish I had Nightfell.

"Are you suggesting a duel?" I ask. "I am sure you wouldn't want to bring dishonor to your name with me so outmatched in weaponry."

"You expect me to believe you have any honor?" he asks, which is, unfortunately, a fair point. "You are a coward. A coward like the man who raised you."

He takes a step toward me, ready to cut me down whether I have a weapon or not.

"Madoc?" I draw my knife. It's not small, but it's still less than half the length of the blade he is leveling at me.

"It was Madoc's plan that we should strike during the coronation. It was his plan that once Dain was out of the way, Eldred would see clear to put the crown on my head. It was all his plan, but he stayed Grand General and I went to the Tower of Forgetting. And did he lift a finger to help me? He did not. He bent his head to my brother, whom he despises. And you're just like him, willing to beg and grovel and lower yourself for anyone if it gets you power."

I doubt putting Balekin on the throne was ever part of Madoc's true plan, whatever he allowed Balekin to believe, but that doesn't make his words sting any less. I have spent a lifetime making myself small in the hopes I could find an acceptable place in Elfhame, and then, when I pulled off the biggest, grandest coup imaginable, I had to hide my abilities more than ever.

"No," I say. "That's not true."

He looks surprised. Even in the Tower of Forgetting, when he was a prisoner, I still let Vulciber strike me. In the Undersea, I pretended to having no dignity at all. Why should he think I see myself any differently than he sees me?

"You are the one who bent your head to Orlagh instead of to your own brother," I say. "You're the coward and a traitor. A murderer of your own kin. But worse than all that, you're a fool."

He bares his teeth as he advances on me, and I, who have been pretending to subservience, remember my most troublesome talent: pissing off the Folk.

"Go ahead," he says. "Run like the coward you are."

I take a step back.

Kill Prince Balekin. I think of Dulcamara's words, but I don't hear her voice. I hear my own, rough with sea water, terrified and cold and alone.

Madoc's words of long ago come back to me. What is sparring but a game of strategy, played at speed?

The point of a fight is not to have a good fight, it's to win.

I am at a disadvantage against a sword, a bad disadvantage. And I am still weak from my time in the Undersea. Balekin can hang back and take his time while I can't get past the blade. He will take me apart slowly, cut by cut. My best bet is closing the distance fast. I need to get inside his guard, and I don't have the luxury of taking his measure before I do it. I am going to have to rush him.

I have one shot to get this right.

My heart thunders in my ears.

He lunges toward me, and I slam my knife against the base of his sword with my right hand then grab his forearm with my left, twisting as though to disarm him. He pulls against my grip. I drive the knife toward his neck.

"Hold," Balekin shouts. "I surr—"

Arterial blood sprays my arm, sprays the grass. It glistens on my knife. Balekin slumps over, sprawling on the ground.

It all happens so fast.

It happens too fast.

I want to have some reaction. I want to tremble or feel nauseated. I want to be the person who begins to weep. I want to be anyone but the person I am, who looks around to be sure no one saw, who wipes off my knife in the dirt, wipes off my hand on his clothes and gets out of there before the guards come.

You're a good little murderer, Dulcamara said.

When I look back, Balekin's eyes are still open, staring at nothing.

When I return, Cardan is sitting on the couch. The bucket is gone and so is the Bomb.

He looks at me with a lazy smile. "Your dress. You put it back on."

I look at him in confusion, the consequences of what I've just done—including having to tell Cardan—are hard to think past. But the dress I am wearing is the one I wore before, the one I got from Mother Marrow's walnut. There's blood on one sleeve of it now, but it is otherwise the same.

"Did something happen?" I ask again.

"I don't know?" he asks, puzzled. "Did it? I granted the boon you wanted. Is your father safe?"

Boon?

My father?

Madoc. Of course. Madoc threatened me, Madoc was disgusted by Cardan. But what has he done and what has it to do with dresses?

"Cardan," I say, trying to be as calm as I can. I go over to the sofa and sit down. It's not a small couch, but his long legs are on it, blanketed and propped up on pillows. No matter how far from him I sit, it feels too close. "You've got to tell me what happened. I haven't been here for the last hour."

His expression grows troubled.

"The Bomb came back with the antidote," he says. "She said you'd be right behind her. I was still so dizzy, and then a guard came, saying that there was an emergency. She went to see. And then you came in, just like she said you would. You said you had a plan.…"

He looks at me, as though waiting for me to jump in and tell the rest of the story, the part I remember. But, of course, I don't.

After a moment, he closes his eyes and shakes his head. "Taryn."

"I don't understand," I say, because I don't want to understand.

"Your plan was that your father was going to take half the army, but for him to function independently, he needed to be freed of his vows to the crown. You had on one of your doublets—the ones you always wear. And these odd earrings. Moons and stars." He shakes his head.

A cold chill goes through me.

As children in the mortal world, Taryn and I would switch places to play tricks on our mother. Even in Faerie, we would sometimes pretend to be each other to see what we could get away with. Would a lecturer be able to tell the difference? Could Oriana? Madoc? Oak? What about the great and mighty Prince Cardan?

"But how did she make you agree?" I demand. "She has no power. She could pretend to be me, but she couldn't force you—"

He puts his head in his long-fingered hands. "She didn't have to command me, Jude. She didn't have to use any magic. I trust you. I trusted you."

And I trusted Taryn.

While I was murdering Balekin, while Cardan was poisoned and disoriented, Madoc made his move against the crown. Against me. And he did it with his daughter Taryn by his side.

The High King is restored to his own chamber so he may rest. I feed my bloodstained dress to the fire, put on a robe, and plan. If none of the courtiers saw my face before Balekin sent them away, then wrapped in my cloak, I might not have been identified. And, of course, I can lie. But the question of how to avoid blame for the murder of the Undersea's ambassador pales beside the question of what to do about Madoc.

With half of the army gone along with the general, if Orlagh decides to strike, I have no idea how to repel her. Cardan will have to choose another Grand General and quickly.

And he will have to inform the lower Courts of Madoc's defection, to make sure it is known he doesn't speak with the voice of the High King. There must be a way to drive him back to the High Court. He is proud but practical. Perhaps the answer lies in something to do with Oak. Perhaps it means I ought to make my hopes for Oak's rule less opaque. But all that depends on his not being seen as a traitor, although he is one. I am thinking over all this when a knock comes to my door.

Outside, a messenger, a lilac-skinned girl in royal livery. "The High King requires your presence. I am to conduct you to his chambers."

I take an unsteady breath. No one else might have seen me, but Cardan cannot fail to guess. He knows whom I went to meet and how late I returned from that meeting. He saw the blood on my sleeve. You command the High King, not the other way around, I remind myself, but the reminder feels hollow.

"Let me change," I say.

The messenger shakes her head. "The king made it clear I was to ask you to come at once."

When I get to the royal chambers, I find Cardan alone, dressed simply, sitting in a throne-like chair. He looks wan, and his eyes still shine a bit too much, as though maybe poison lingers in his blood.

"Please," he says. "Sit."

Warily, I do.

"Once, you had a proposal for me," he says. "Now I have one for you. Give me back my will. Give me back my freedom."

I suck in a breath. I'm surprised, although I guess I shouldn't be. No one wants to be under the control of another person, although the balance of power between us, in my view, has careened back and forth, despite his vow. My having command of him has felt like balancing a knife on its point, nearly impossible and probably dangerous. To give it up would mean giving up any semblance of power. It would be giving up everything. "You know I won't do that."

He doesn't seem particularly put off by my refusal. "Hear me out. What you want from me is obedience for longer than a year and a day. More than half your time is gone. Are you ready to put Oak on the throne?"

I don't speak for a moment, hoping he might think his question was rhetorical. When it becomes clear that's not the case, I shake my head.

"And so you thought to extend my vow. Just how were you imagining doing that?"

Again, I have no answer. Certainly no good one.

It's his turn to smile. "You thought I had nothing to bargain with."

Underestimating him is a problem I've had before, and I fear will have again. "What bargain is possible?" I ask. "When what I want is for you to make the vow again, for at least another year, if not a decade, and what you want is for me to rescind the vow entirely?"

"Your father and sister tricked me," Cardan says. "If Taryn had given me a command, I would have known it wasn't you. But I was sick and tired and didn't want to refuse you. I didn't even ask why, Jude. I wanted to show you that you could trust me, that you didn't need to give me orders for me to do things. I wanted to show you that I believed you'd thought it all through. But that's no way to rule. And it's not really even trust, when someone can order you to do it anyway.

"Faerie suffered with us at each other's throats. You attempted to make me do what you thought needed to be done, and if we disagreed, we could do nothing but manipulate each other. That wasn't working, but simply giving in is no solution. We cannot continue like this. Tonight is proof of that. I need to make my own decisions."

"You said you didn't mind so much, listening to my orders." It's a paltry attempt at humor, and he doesn't smile.

Instead, he looks away, as though he can't quite meet my eyes. "All the more reason not to allow myself that luxury. You made me the High King, Jude. Let me be the High King."

I fold my arms protectively over my chest. "And what will I be? Your servant?" I hate that he's making sense, because there is no way I can give him what he's asking. I can't step aside, not with Madoc out there, not with so many threats. And yet I cannot help recalling what the Bomb said about Cardan's not knowing how to invoke his connection to the land. Or what the Roach said, about Cardan's thinking of himself as a spy pretending to be a monarch.

"Marry me," he says. "Become the Queen of Elfhame."

I feel a kind of cold shock come over me, as though someone has told a particularly cruel joke, with me its target. As though someone looked into my heart and saw the most ridiculous, most childish desire there and used it against me. "But you can't."

"I can," he says. "Kings and queens don't often marry for something other than a political alliance, true, but consider this a version of that. And were you queen, you wouldn't need my obedience. You could issue all your own orders. And I would be free."

I can't help thinking of how mere months ago I fought for a place in the Court, hoping desperately for knighthood and didn't even get that.

The irony that it's Cardan, who insisted that I didn't belong in Faerie at all, offering me this makes it all the more shocking.

He goes on. "Moreover, since you plan on forcing me into abdicating for your brother, it's not as though we'd be married forever. Marriages between kings and queens must last as long as they rule, but in our case, that's not so long. You could have everything you want at the price of merely releasing me from my vow of obedience."

My heart is pounding so hard that I fear it will stutter to a stop.

"You're serious?" I manage.

"Of course I am. In earnest as well."

I look for the trick, because this must be one of those faerie bargains that sound like one thing but turn out to be something very different. "So let me guess, you want me to release you from your vow for your promise to marry me? But then the marriage will take place in the month of never when the moon rises in the west and the tides flow backward."

He shakes his head, laughing. "If you agree, I will marry you tonight," he says. "Now, even. Right here. We exchange vows, and it is done. This is no mortal marriage, to require being presided over and witnessed. I cannot lie. I cannot deny you."

"It's not long until your vow is up," I say, because the idea of taking what he's offering—the idea that I could not only be part of the Court, but the head of it—is so tempting that it's hard to believe it might not be a trap. "Surely the idea of a few more months tied to me can't be such a hardship that you'd like to tie yourself to me for years."

"As I said before, a lot can happen in a year and a day. Much has happened in half that time."

We sit silently for a moment as I try to think. For the last seven months, the question of what would happen after a year and a day has haunted me. This is a solution, but it doesn't feel at all practical. It's the stuff of absurd daydream, imagined while dozing in a mossy glen, too embarrassing to even confess to my sisters.

Mortal girls do not become queens of Faerieland.

I imagine what it would be like to have my own crown, my own power. Maybe I wouldn't have to be afraid to love him. Maybe it would be okay. Maybe I wouldn't have to be scared of all the things I've been scared of my whole life, of being diminished and weak and lesser. Maybe I would become a little bit magic.

"Yes," I say, but my voice fails me. It comes out all breath. "Yes."

He leans forward in the chair, eyebrows raised, but he doesn't wear his usual arrogant mien. I cannot read his expression. "To what are you agreeing?"

"Okay," I say. "I'll do it. I'll marry you."

He gives me a wicked grin. "I had no idea it would be such a sacrifice."

Frustrated, I flop over on the couch. "That's not what I mean."

"Marriage to the High King of Elfhame is largely thought to be a prize, a honor of which few are worthy."

I suppose his sincerity could last but only so long. I roll my eyes, grateful that he's acting like himself again, so I can better pretend not to be overawed by what's about to happen. "So what do we do?"

I think of Taryn's wedding and the part of the ceremony we did not witness. I think of my mother's wedding, too, the vows she must have made to Madoc, and abruptly a shiver goes through me that I hope has nothing to do with premonition.

"It's simple," he says, moving to the edge of the chair. "We pledge our troth. I'll go first—unless you wish to wait. Perhaps you imagined something more romantic."

"No," I say quickly, unwilling to admit to imagining anything to do with marriage at all.

He slides my ruby ring off his finger. "I, Cardan, son of Eldred, High King of Elfhame, take you, Jude Duarte, mortal ward of Madoc, to be my bride and my queen. Let us be wed until we wish for it to be otherwise and the crown has passed from our hands."

As he speaks, I begin to tremble with something between hope and fear. The words he's saying are so momentous that they're surreal, especially here, in Eldred's own rooms. Time seems to stretch out. Above us, the branches begin to bud, as though the land itself heard the words he spoke.

Catching my hand, he slides the ring on. The exchange of rings is not a faerie ritual, and I am surprised by it.

"Your turn," he says into the silence. He gives me a grin. "I'm trusting you to keep your word and release me from my bond of obedience after this."

I smile back, which maybe makes up for the way that I froze after he finished speaking. I still can't quite believe this is happening. My hand tightens on his as I speak. "I, Jude Duarte, take Cardan, High King of Elfhame, to be my husband. Let us be wed until we don't want to be and the crown has passed from our hands."

He kisses the scar of my palm.

I still have his brother's blood under my fingernails.

I don't have a ring for him.

Above us, the buds are blooming. The whole room smells of flowers.

Drawing back, I speak again, pushing away all thoughts of Balekin, of the future in which I am going to have to tell him what I've done. "Cardan, son of Eldred, High King of Elfhame, I forsake any command over you. You are free of your vow of obedience, for now and for always."

He lets out a breath and stands a bit unsteadily. I can't quite wrap my head around the idea that I am… I can't even think the words. Too much has happened tonight.

"You look as if you've barely rested." I rise to be sure that if he falls over, I can grab for him before he hits the floor, although I am not so sure of myself, either.

"I will lie down," he says, letting me guide him toward his enormous bed. Once there, he does not let go of my hand. "If you lie with me."

With no reason to object, I do, the sense of unreality heightening. As I stretch out on the elaborately embroidered comforter, I realize that I have found something far more blasphemous than spreading out on the bed of the High King, far more blasphemous than sneaking Cardan's signet onto my finger, or even sitting on the throne itself.

I have become the Queen of Faerie.

We trade kisses in the darkness, blurred by exhaustion. I don't expect to sleep, but I do, my limbs tangled with his, the first restful sleep I've had since my return from the Undersea. When I am awakened, it is to a banging on the door.

Cardan is already up, playing with the vial of clay the Bomb brought, tossing it from hand to hand. Still dressed, his rumpled aspect gives him only an air of dissipation. I pull my robe more tightly around me. I am embarrassed to be so obviously sharing his bed.

"Your Majesty," says the messenger—a knight, from the clipped, official sound of him. "Your brother is dead. There was a duel, from what we've been able to determine."

"Ah," Cardan says.

"And the Queen of the Undersea." The knight's voice trembles. "She's here, demanding justice for her ambassador."

"I just bet she is." Cardan's voice is dry, clipped. "Well, we can hardly keep her waiting. You. What's your name?"

The knight hesitates. "Rannoch, Your Majesty."

"Well, Sir Rannoch, I expect you to assemble a group of knights to escort me to the water. You will wait in the courtyard. Will you do that for me?"

"But the general…" he begins.

"Is not here right now," Cardan finishes for him.

"I will do it," the knight says. I hear the door close, and Cardan rounds the corner, expression haughty.

"Well, wife," he says to me, a chill in his voice. "It seems you have kept at least one secret from your dowry. Come, we must dress for our first audience together."

And so I am left to rush through the halls in my robe. Back in my rooms, I call for my sword and throw on my velvets, all the while wondering what it will mean to have this newfound status and what Cardan will do now that he is unchecked.

Orlagh waits for us in a choppy ocean, accompanied by her daughter and a pod of knights mounted on seals and sharks and all manner of sharp-toothed sea creatures. She, herself, sits on an orca and is dressed as though ready for battle. Her skin is covered in shiny silvery scales that seem both to be metallic and to have grown from her skin. A helmet of bone and teeth hides her hair.

Nicasia is beside her, on a shark. She has no tail today, her long legs covered in armor of shell and bone.

All along the edge of the beach are clumps of kelp, washed up as though from a storm. I think I see other things out in the water. The back of a large creature swimming just below the waves. The hair of drowned mortals, blowing like sea grass. The Undersea's forces are larger than they seem at first glance.

"Where is my ambassador?" Orlagh demands. "Where is your brother?"

Cardan is seated on his gray steed, in black clothes and a cloak of scarlet. Beside him are two dozen mounted knights and both Mikkel and Nihuar. On the ride over, they tried to determine what Cardan had planned, but he has kept his own counsel from them and, more troublingly, from me. Since hearing of the death of Balekin, he's said little and avoided looking in my direction. My stomach churns with anxiety.

He looks at Orlagh with a coldness that I know from experience comes from either fury or fear. In this case, possibly both. "As you well know, he's dead."

"It was your responsibility to keep him safe," she says.

"Was it?" Cardan asks with exaggerated astonishment, touching his hand to his breast. "I thought my obligation was not to move against him, not to keep him from the consequences of his own risk taking. He had a little duel, from what I hear. Dueling, as I am sure you know, is dangerous. But I neither murdered him nor did I encourage it. In fact, I quite discouraged it."

I attempt to not let anything I am feeling show on my face.

Orlagh leans forward as though she senses blood in the water. "You ought not to allow such disobedience."

Cardan shrugs nonchalantly. "Perhaps."

Mikkel shifts on his horse. He's clearly uncomfortable with the way Cardan is speaking, carelessly, as though they are merely having a friendly conversation and Orlagh hasn't come to chisel away his power, to weaken his rule. And if she knew Madoc was gone, she might attack outright.

Looking at her, looking at Nicasia's sneer and the selkies and merfolk's strange, wet eyes, I feel powerless. I have given up command of Cardan, and for it, I have his vow of marriage. But without anyone's knowing, it seems less and less as though it ever happened.

"I am here to demand justice. Balekin was my ambassador, and if you don't consider him to be under your protection, I do consider him to be under mine. You must give his murderer to the sea, where she will find no forgiveness. Give us your seneschal, Jude Duarte."

For a moment, I feel as though I can't breathe. It's as though I am drowning again.

Cardan's eyebrows go up. His voice stays light. "But she's only just returned from the sea."

"So you don't dispute her crime?" asks Orlagh.

"Why should I?" asks Cardan. "If she's the one with whom he dueled, I am certain she would win; my brother supposed himself expert with the sword—a great exaggeration of abilities. But she's mine to punish or not, as I see fit."

I hate hearing myself spoken of as though I am not right there when I have his pledge of troth. But a queen killing an ambassador does seem like a potential political problem.

Orlagh's gaze doesn't go to me. I doubt very much she cares about anything but that Cardan gave up a lot for my return and by threatening me, she believes she can get more. "King of the land, I am not here to fight your sharp tongue. My blood is cold and I prefer blades. Once, I considered you as a partner for my daughter, the most precious thing in the sea. She would have brokered a true peace between us."

Cardan looks at Nicasia, and although Orlagh leaves him an opening, for a long moment, he does not speak. And when he does, he only says, "Like you, I am not so good with forgiveness."

Something in Queen Orlagh's manner changes. "If it's war you want, you would be unwise to declare it on an island." Around her, waves grow more violent, their white caps of froth larger. Whirlpools form just off the edge of the land, small ones, deepening, only to spin themselves out as new ones form.

"War?" He peers at her as though she's said something particularly puzzling and it vexes him. "Do you mean for me to really believe you want to fight? Are you challenging me to a duel?"

He's obviously baiting her, but I cannot imagine to what benefit.

"And if I was?" she asks. "What then, boy?"

The smile that curves his lip is voluptuous. "Beneath every bit of your sea is land. Seething, volcanic land. Go against me, and I will show you what this boy will do, my lady."

He stretches out his hand, and something seems to rise to the top of the water around us, like a pale scrum. Sand. Floating sand.

Then, all around the Court of the Undersea, water begins to churn.

I stare at him, hoping to catch his eye, but he is concentrating. Whatever magic he is doing, this is what Baphen meant when he said the High King was tied to the land, was the beating heart and the star upon whom Elfhame's future was written. This is power. And to see Cardan wield it is to understand just how inhuman he is, how transformed, how far outside my control he's moved.

"What is this?" Orlagh asks as the churning turns to boiling. An oblong of bubbling and seething ocean as the Folk of the Undersea scream and scatter, swimming out of range of whatever is happening. Several seals come up on the black rocks near the land, calling to one another in their language.

Nicasia's shark is spun sideways, and she plunges into the water.

Steam billows up from the waves, blowing hot. A huge white cloud rolls across my vision. When it clears, I can see that new earth has coalesced from the depths, hot stone cooling as we watch.

With Nicasia standing on it, her expression half amazement and half terror. "Cardan," she calls.

He's facing her, and one corner of his mouth is turned up in a little smile, but his gaze is unfocused. He believed that he needed to convince Orlagh that he wasn't feckless.

Now I see he's come up with a plan to do that. Just as he came up with a plan to throw off the yoke of my control.

During my month in the Undersea, he changed. He began scheming schemes. And he has become disturbingly effective at them.

I am thinking of that as I watch grass grow between Nicasia's toes and wildflowers spring up all along the gently rising hills, as I notice the trees and brambles sprout, and as the trunk of a tree begins to form around Nicasia's body.

"What have you done?" Orlagh cries as the bark moves higher, as branches unfold, budding with leaves and fragrant blossoms. Petals blow out onto the waves.

"Will you flood the land now?" Cardan asks Orlagh with perfect calm, as though he didn't just cause a fourth island to rise from the sea. "Send salt water to corrupt the roots of our trees and make our streams and lakes brackish? Will you drown our berries and send your merfolk to slit our throats and steal our roses? Will you do it if it means your daughter will suffer the same? Come, I dare you."

"Release Nicasia," says Orlagh, defeat heavy in her voice.

"I am the High King of Elfhame," Cardan reminds her. "And I mislike being given orders. You attacked the land. You stole my seneschal and freed my brother, who was imprisoned for the murder of our father, Eldred, with whom you had an alliance. Once, we respected each other's territory.

"I have allowed you too much disrespect, and you have overplayed your hand.

"Now, Queen of the Undersea, we will have a truce as you had with Eldred, as you had with Mab. We will have a truce or we will have a war, and if we fight, I will be unsparing. Nothing and no one you love will be safe."

"Very well, High King," Orlagh says, and I suck in my breath, not at all sure what will come next. "Let us have an alliance and no longer be at one another's throats. Give me my daughter, and we will go."

I let out a breath. He was wise to push her, even though it was terrifying. After all, once she found out about Madoc, she might press her advantage. Better to bring this moment to its crisis.

And it worked. I look down to hide my smile.

"Let Nicasia stay here and be your ambassador in Balekin's stead," Cardan says. "She has grown up on these islands, and many who love her are here."

That wipes the smile off my face. On the new island, the bark is pulling away from Nicasia's skin. I wonder what he's playing at, bringing her back to Elfhame. With her will inevitably come trouble.

And yet, maybe it's the sort of trouble he wants.

"If she wishes to stay, she may. Are you satisfied?" Orlagh asks.

Cardan inclines his head. "I am. I will not be led by the sea, no matter how great its queen. As the High King, I must lead. But I must also be just."

Here he pauses. And then he turns to me. "And today I will dispense justice. Jude Duarte, do you deny you murdered Prince Balekin, Ambassador of the Undersea and brother to the High King?"

I am not sure what he wants me to say. Would it help to deny it? If so, surely he would not put it to me in such a way—a way that makes it clear he believes I did kill Balekin. Cardan has had a plan all along. All I can do is trust that he has a plan now.

"I do not deny that we had a duel and that I won it," I say, my voice coming out more uncertain than I'd like.

All the eyes of the Folk are on me, and for a moment, as I look out at their pitiless faces, I feel Madoc's absence keenly. Orlagh's smile is full of sharp teeth.

"Hear my judgment," Cardan says, authority ringing in his voice. "I hereafter exile Jude Duarte to the mortal world until such time as she is pardoned by the crown. Until then, let her not step one foot in Faerie or forfeit her life."

I gasp. "But you can't do that!"

He looks at me for a long moment, but his gaze is mild, as though he's expecting me to be fine with exile. As though I am nothing more than one of his petitioners. As though I am nothing at all. "Of course I can," he replies.

"But I'm the Queen of Faerie," I shout, and for a moment, there is silence. Then everyone around me begins to laugh.

I can feel my cheeks heat. Tears of frustration and fury prick my eyes as, a beat too late, Cardan laughs with them.

At that moment, knights clap their hands on my wrists. Sir Rannoch pulls me down from the horse. For a mad moment I consider fighting him as though two dozen knights aren't around us.

"Deny it then," I yell. "Deny me!"

He cannot, of course, so he does not. Our eyes meet, and the odd smile on his face is clearly meant for me. I remember what it was to hate him with the whole of my heart, but I've remembered too late.

"Come with me, my lady," Sir Rannoch says, and there is nothing I can do but go.

Still, I cannot resist looking back. When I do, Cardan is taking the first step onto the new island. He looks every bit the ruler his father was, every bit the monster his brother wanted to become. Crow-black hair blown back from his face, scarlet cape swirling around him, eyes reflecting the flat gray emptiness of the sky.

"If Insweal is the Isle of Woe, Insmire, the Isle of Might, and Insmoor the Isle of Stone," he says, his voice carrying across the newly formed land. "Then let this be Insear, Isle of Ash."

I lie on the couch in front of the television. In front of me a plate of microwaved fish sticks grows cold. On the screen in front of me, a cartoon ice-skater is sulking. He is not a very good skater, I think. Or maybe he's a great skater. I keep forgetting to read the subtitles.

It's hard to concentrate on pretty much anything these days.

Vivi comes into the room and flops down on the couch. "Heather won't text me back," she says.

I turned up on Vivi's doorstep a week before, exhausted, my eyes red with weeping. Rannoch and his coterie had carried me across the sky on one of their horses and dumped me on a random street in a random town. I'd walked and walked until I had blisters on my feet, and I began to doubt my ability to navigate by the stars. Finally, I stumbled into a gas station with a taxi refueling and was startled to remember taxis existed. By then, I didn't care that I had no money with me and that Vivi was probably going to pay him with a handful of glamoured leaves.

But I didn't expect to arrive and find Heather gone.

When she and Vivi came back from Faerie, I guess she had a lot of questions. And then she'd had more questions, and finally, Vivi admitted glamouring her. That's when everything totally unraveled.

Vivi removed the glamour, Heather got her memories back. Heather moved out.

She's sleeping at her parents' house, so Vivi keeps hoping she might still come back. Some of her stuff is still here. Clothes. Her drafting table. A set of unused oil paints.

"She'll text you when she's ready," I say, although I am not sure I believe it. "She's just trying to get her head straight." Just because I am bitter about romance doesn't mean everyone else needs to be.

For a while, we just sit on the couch together, watching the cartoon skater fail to land jumps and fall in helpless and probably unrequited love with his coach.

Soon, Oak will come home from school, and we will pretend that things are normal. I will take him into the wooded part of the apartment complex and drill him on the sword. He doesn't mind, but to him it's only messing around, and I don't have the heart to scare him into seeing swordplay differently.

Vivi takes a fish stick off my plate and dredges it through the ketchup. "How long you going to keep sulking? You were exhausted from being locked up in the Undersea. You were off your game. He got one over on you. It happens."

"Whatever," I say as she eats my food.

"If you hadn't gotten captured, you would have mopped the floor with him."

I am not even sure what that means, but it's nice to hear.

"I'm glad you're here." She turns to me with her cat eyes, eyes just like her father. "I wanted you to come to the mortal world and stay. Maybe you will. Maybe you'll love it. I want you to give it a chance."

I nod noncommittally.

"And if you don't love it," she says, lifting an eyebrow. "You can always join Madoc."

"I can't," I say. "He tried and tried to recruit me, but I kept turning him down. That ship sailed."

She shrugs. "He wouldn't—okay, he would care. He'd make you grovel a lot, and he'd bring it up awkwardly in war councils for the next couple of decades. But he'd take you."

I give her a stern look. "And what? Work to put Oak on the throne?"

"Who cares about that? Work to hurt Cardan," Vivi says, with a fierce light in her eyes. She has never been particularly forgiving.

Right now, I am glad of it.

"How?" I say, but the strategic part of my brain is grinding slowly back into action. Grimsen is still in play. If he could make a crown for Balekin, what could he do for me?

"I don't know, but don't worry about it yet," Vivi says, getting up. "Revenge is sweet, but ice cream is sweeter." She goes to the freezer and removes a tub of mint chocolate chip. She brings that and two spoons back to the sofa. "For now, accept this delight, unworthy though it is for the Queen of Faerie in exile."

I know she doesn't mean to mock me, but the title stings anyway. I pick up my spoon.

You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring. The first lesson is to make yourself that strong.

We eat bathed in the flickering light of the screen. Vivi's phone is silent on the coffee table. My mind is whirling.


End file.
